


The Passing of the Years

by TypingBosmer



Series: New Sun Rising [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alienages (Dragon Age), Backstory, Circle of Magi, Coming of Age, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Formerly Tranquil Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Older Characters, Rite of Tranquility, Symbolism, Templars (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29518935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/pseuds/TypingBosmer
Summary: Elgara Lavellan, a city elf taken to a Circle, thought she had all the time in the world to figure out whether she was attracted to people and wanted romance — but then she was subjected to the Rite of Tranquility, and spent twenty years as an emotionless husk. When the Mark cured her, she feared that it would be too late for her to seek love now. But that is not necessarily the case.
Relationships: Gereon Alexius/Female Inquisitor, Gereon Alexius/Female Lavellan
Series: New Sun Rising [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119389
Kudos: 5





	The Passing of the Years

Elgara is twelve years old, and there are so many things in the world that she loves. Like the swirling pink spill of sunset against the patch of sky that she can make out in between the walls and roofs of the alienage. Or the fat little birds that perch on the chipped windowsill of her family's little house in the morning. Or the sweet tang of berries - actual forest berries! - that she gets to add to her porridge sometimes, when Mamae manages to trade for them with a friend of a friend of a friend who has a relative in a Dalish clan.

It's a beautiful feeling, love. It spills over the edges of her heart like crystal clear water, the kind of water you rarely see in the alienage. It fills her chest to the brim, making it spread out, turning each breath into a sigh of joy.

She delights in it, in her love of sunsets and birds and berries. And the people around her. Mamae. Mom. Their neighbours. The children she plays with. She loves them all - and if she is to believe the books that she sneaks under her covers late at night, some day, when she is a little bit older, she might meet someone whom she will love in a new, swooning and kissing and riding-on-single-horse-towards-the-horizon way. That would be fun, she thinks. She especially looks forward to the shower of flower petals that always seems to come out of nowhere in book illustrations; perhaps some well-meaning friend is sprinkling them from above?

She squints at her peers one day. Trying to figure out which one of them is swoon- and petal-worthy.

There are no glossy, silken roses or frilly chrysanthemums growing in the alienage; just dandelions, mostly, too stubborn to wilt amid the cracked dry mud. She plucks a few and squishes them together into a little bouquet in her yellow-streaked grasp. Then, strides up to the boy she thinks will look good in one of those flowery illustrations.

But the boy backs away, shrinking into a tight knot of nerves, while the other da'len he was playing with, boys and girls both, straighten up and ball their fists.

They have been shunning Elgara for a while now. And she can guess why - which makes her stomach curdle sickeningly and the wellspring in her heart run dry.

She's been showing... signs. Making things glow and soar into the air. Leaving frosty footprints in her wake. Sending off crackling sparks from her fingertips.

She has been touched by magic.

And sooner or later, no matter how hard her family tries to hold on to her, to pretend that everything is all right, the human knights will find out... Which might mean a purge. A thousand strikes of steel and fame that will rip everything that she loves apart. And then there will be no more peaceful sunsets, no more visits from fat little birds, no more berry porridge.

So Elgara squares her jaw, and tucks her stubborn curls behind her ears, and tosses the dandelions aside. And marches off to the human Chantry to hand herself in.

***

Elgara is sixteen years old. It has been... a lot, getting used to a life in the red brick tower, in a new city miles away from her house with a chipped windowsill.

But she has pushed through it, with her jaw still squared and her curls tucked behind her ears.

She has found a rhythm, a heartbeat within the red brick walls, and she dances through each day in time with that rhythm. Racing up and down the endless stairs to fetch books and scrolls and then hand them back in. Weaving sigil circles, again and again till the silvery glow flows perfectly. Sometimes even stopping to appreciate the sunset outside the narrow latticed window, or the silhouettes of fat little birds on a tree branch far below, and feeling the old love stir again, with a faint creek-like babble. And always, always helping people.

It is hard to love someone like they do in books, when you live under the constant glare of suspicious eyes through helmet slits, in a place you can never leave. But some apprentices do try. They duck into hidden corners, and press tight against each other in a potion closet, and lace their fingers together under a desk.

And whatever they do, their good friend Elgara, brought in from the faraway Wycome alienage, is there to stand guard and watch for Templars. Or raise a ruckus so that everyone runs to investigate and the hallway is left empty. Or nudge the hesitant lovebirds towards each other. Honestly, if she had petals at her disposal, she'd use those too... But then someone would have to sweep the corridors, and the staff have enough on their plate, what with things constantly exploding all over the classrooms.

She wonders sometimes if she might offer one of her study mates to go on one of these... adventures with her. Maybe that human boy with the soulful brown eyes and a copper wire curl of hair on his chin? Or that girl, an elf like her, who gets this adorable little frown when she tries to figure out a problem from her homework?

Who knows, maybe if they do it often enough, that torrent in her heart will come flooding in again. She did always think it would be fun...

But first, she has to help others. To learn magic. To read all those new, captivating books. She still has time; none of her fellow mages are going anywhere.

***

Elgara is twenty years old. Then twenty-five. Then thirty. She can give a clear, precise account of every single day that makes up those years. She has been working quite efficiently, after all.

The record in her personal file states that during her Harrowing, she freed the demon that the Circle had been keeping in the confines of a binding sigil within a pocket segment of the Fade, so it might tempt apprentices and test their grasp of magic. She must have thought such binding to be unfair. At least, so her logic suggests.

That is the only tool at her disposal - logic - now that the sunburst brand has been carved into her forehead.

For her treatment of the Circle's demon, her connection to the Fade was taken away from her. She can no longer weave spells; can no longer feel anything when she looks out of the window and catches the flare of a sunset, or spots a fat little bird.

The changes in the colour of the sky are merely indicators of time to her. Just as porridge, or any other food, is merely a dose of nutrients to fuel her body for a new day of productive effort for the good of the Circle. The porridge sometimes does have berries in it; something that Elgara would have greatly appreciated in the past, although she now has no idea why. That escapes her logic.

What does not escape her logic, however, is that she must keep helping people. Helping is fair; even if it does not always improve productivity.

For all around her, the non-Tranquil - who might have dedicated this time to research instead - seek secret trysts in hidden corners and closets and empty hallways. She thinks that the physical stimulation makes them happy, and so she continues helping them. Providing them with suitable accommodation. Diverting the Templars' attention. Making potions and tiny wearable runes to prevent unwanted pregnancies, if the two partners have the anatomical capacity for it.

Perhaps if she still perceived the Fade, she would have sought to join them. Perhaps. She will never find out now.

That time has passed. She desires no-one, and no-one desires her - save for an occasional Templar who assumes that a Tranquil is like an obedient wind-up doll; those get their jaw fractured by a perfectly calculated punch. While she keeps her curls - once shorn down to keep out of the brand's way, and now slowly growing out - tucked behind her ears.

She will leave the realm of attraction, and romance, and swooning and petals (as her journal entries from her past life pit it, whatever that means) to those that can feel emotions.

***

Elgara is forty years old. Through a completely wild turn of events - the intervention of Andraste, some say - she was reconnected to the Fade, but a few months ago. Her emotions have come sweeping back in, the tide from the wellspring choking her. All manner of emotions, each burning bright like the acidic gash in her left palm. Tooth-gnashing rage. Wailing grief. Spinning, dizzy elation.

And among these emotions, is an overpowering awareness that she is surrounded by beautiful people. From the fierce Seeker with cutting-edge cheekbones and fascinating scars, to the refined court mage with an impeccable fashion sense and just as impeccably sculpted face; from the steadfast Warden with the most incredible beard ever worn by a human, to the mysterious apostate with such soft lips and noble chin. She thinks she is beginning to love them as dear friends... And perhaps she could... No. It is too late for her.

The precious, fleeting, youthful years when people practice the swooning business were taken from her by Tranquility. To start now would be ridiculous. Her time has passed; her chance has slipped from her grasp. There will never be a lofty love story told about her, or a shower of petals shed for her sake.

Elgara is forty years old, and as she fights and toils for the Inquisition, she grows older still. Amid the anguish of fighting back parts of herself that her Mark unlocked, more and more grey is snaking through her curls, still just as stubborn, which she tucks behind her ears when she squares her jaw and shapes the fate of the world with a choice after choice after choice.

One of those choices was to spare the life of the Tevinter magister that nearly killed her. Twisted and corrupted so much that even those who once loved and admired him, his son and his apprentice, look on at him in horror, revulsion even - he rather reminds her of the demon she once freed. Underneath the molten, oozing scales of that demon, there was a wisp of a spirit; a glowing trace of warm, benevolent essence that had been encased in darkness. She wonders if a similar wisp lives on in the magister; if a similar warmth might awaken in his tired, darkened eyes if he is given a chance to atone.

He takes that chance, defeatedly at first... But then, research for the Inquisition, and an expedition after expedition out into the wilds to undo the damage wrought by his fellow cultists throughout Ferelden and Orlais, catches him and carries him away. Like a stream gushing out of a wellspring.

They talk. He apologizes for calling her a mistake, stirring a rush of a stream in her own chest when their eyes meet. They talk some more. And more. They laugh. They begin to share inside jokes. They flail their arms ecstatically at one another over a magical discovery. They gaze in a tender silence at the pink swirl of a sunset, lingering side by side for no productive reason; and the warmth in his gaze ever grows when he watches her feed a whole flock of fat little birds.

And then... One day, they kiss.

She is forty years old; he is on the other side of fifty. She never got a chance to figure out if romance was what she wanted; he did get that chance, and then lost the woman he loved, and had his emotions shattered with a force second only to the Rite of Tranquility. Yet they kiss. And they will kiss again, and again, and again, in all the time they have left.

They will kiss, and rest their foreheads together, his marked by the lines of past pain, hers seared by the sunburst. They will cup each other's faces, tracing the silver at their temples. And wear the crowns of golden dandelions. Stubborn as the both of them. Blooming through the cracks.


End file.
